General Director, Vladimir Urin, began his opening speech by offering to remember how the theatre lived through the past season.

– I would not like to bore you with numbers, but I will name a few because they are what you did, – the director addressed the group. – The theatre gave six hundred and eighty-five performances, and it is a significant number even for a large theatre like ours. We were visited by 484 thousand people, almost half a million, it is also given that the restrictions were only lifted in March this year and we were allowed to have a full auditorium. Over the 246th season we earned two billion six hundred and thirty-four million roubles: these record-breaking revenues are to your credit; your work and we thank you greatly for that. Despite all of the hardships of the past season, almost all premieres that we had planned were held (operas – Lohengrin, Don Giovanni, Maddalena and L’heure espagnole, Falstaff, ossia Le tre burle, Linda di Chamounix, a semi-staged performance of the operetta Die Fledermaus, ballets – Master and Margarita, staged specifically for the Bolshoi, Made in the Bolshoi, Les Saisons and Dancemania, and a fundamental renewal of the ballet Anuyta). 

The Bolshoi Theatre toured extensively – twice in Samara (with the ballet The Taming of the Shrew, then with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony), Nizhny Novgorod, Kaliningrad and Dobrograd with gala concerts, and in Chelyabinsk, where we presented the ballet Giselle. The past season started with a large-scale festival DanceInversion and finished with the grand performances by our colleagues – the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Leonid Yacobson Ballet Theatre, and the Boris Eifman Ballet on the stage of the Bolshoi. Apart from the creative successes, there have been significant improvements in building and renovation. Important work has been done on the New Stage and the kindergarten of the Bolshoi Theatre. The restoration of the workshops on Bolshaya Dmitrovka will soon be completed and the theatre will start operating in another complex of art production workshops in close proximity to it.

Ballet Artistic Director, Makhar Vaziev, expressed the hope that the upcoming season will bring new discoveries.

– We are used to releasing four or five premieres, and it is not so easy. In this sense, this season might not be as challenging, but it will create an opportunity to focus on certain basic things and work them through.

Having spoken about the plans* for the upcoming season, including premieres, as well as a number of tours in Russia, Mr. Urin expressed his deep gratitude to “all sponsors, trustees, or rather, friends and colleagues”, and noted that despite the difficult times that had developed, almost no one left the Bolshoi Theatre without their care.

According to a long-established tradition, at the gathering of the troupe, awards were presented by the Board of Trustees of the theatre. This time, Ingosstrakh, the general partner of the Bolshoi, joined the Board of Trustees and established its own awards. The list of these laureates was not inferior in number to the group awarded by the Board of Trustees.

The Bolshoi Theatre of Russia preliminary plans for the 247th season 

Opera Premieres

December 22, 2022
New Stage

The Demon by Anton Rubinstein

Production Music Director – Artyom Abashev
Production Director – Vladislavs Nastavševs
Set Designers – Vladislavs Nastavševs, Maya Mayer
Movement Director – Ekaterina Mironova

March 2, 2023
Boris Pokrovsky Chamber Stage

Askold’s Grave by Alexei Verstovsky

Production Music Director – Ivan Velikanov
Production Director – Maria Fomicheva
Set Designer – Alyona Glinskaya

March 29, 2023
Historic Stage

Il trovatore by Guiseppe Verdi

Production Music Director – to be announced
Production Director – Roman Feodori
Production Designer – Daniil Akhmedov

Vladimir Urin also announced that the last premiere of the season will be the opera Beatrice and Benedict by Hector Berlioz at the New Stage, the production team will be announced shortly.

Ballet Premieres

November 30, 2022
Historic Stage

Chopiniana to music by Frédéric Chopin

Choreography by Mikhail Fokine
Revival Ballet Masters – Natalia Bolshakova, Vadim Gulyaev
Sets by Vladimir Dmitriev
Revival Designer – Alyona Pikalova
Costume Designer – Tatiana Noginova

Grand Pas from the ballet Paquita to music by Ludwig Minkus

Choreography by Marius Petipa, version by Yuri Burlaka
Production choreographer – Yuri Burlaka
Set Designer – Alyona Pikalova
Costume Designer – Elena Zaitseva

Production Music Director – Pavel Klinitchev

June 14, 2023
Historic Stage

The Queen of Spades to music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Yuri Krasavin

Choreographer – Yuri Possokhov
Set Designer – Polina Bakhtina
Production Music Director – Anton Grishanin

Tours

September 23 & 24, 2022
Bolshoi Ballet and Orchestra first tour in Yakutsk

The Sakha State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Carmen Suite & divertissement
Conductor - Alexei Bogorad

February 27, 28, 2023
The Bolshoi Theatre tour in Kazan

Galas of soloists of the Bolshoi Theatre at the Tatar Opera and Ballet Theatre

Guest Companies at the Bolshoi

October 25-29, 2022
Historic Stage
National Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus

October 25, 26
King Stakh’s Wild Hunt
opera by Vladimir Soltan

October 28, 29
ballet Nutcracker by Pyotr Tchaikovsky

December 5-6, 2022
New Stage
The Sakha State Opera and Ballet Theatre

Nyurgun Bohotur the Swift
opera by Mark Zhirkov

May 29 – June 4, 2023
Historic Stage
Astana Opera (Kazakhstan)

Abai
opera by Akhmet Zhubanov and Latif Hamidi

Notre Dame de Paris
ballet by Maurice Jarre
Сhoreography by Roland Petit

Concerts

September 25, 2022
Zaryadye Concert Hall
Bolshoi Orchestra, Chorus and Opera soloists concert
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 2
Conductor – Dmitry Liss

September 25, 2022
New Stage
Casta Diva Award Gala

October 1, 2022
Historic Stage
Russian Jazz Centenary Gala

The programme to Rakhmaninov’s 150th Birth Anniversary

April 9, 2023
Historic Stage
The Bells
Symphony No. 2
Conductor – Stanislav Kochanovsky

May 21, 2023
Historic Stage
All-Night Vigil
Conductor – Valery Borisov
Aleko (opera concert version)
Conductor – Stanislav Kochanovsky